President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency plans to undo an Obama-era greenhouse gas rule used to justify nationwide climate regulations.
On Wednesday, the EPA will roll back the Obama administration’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” which identifies six greenhouse gases that pose “a threat to public health and welfare,” The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
As the finding was used to justify broad actions raising fuel economy standards and limiting power plant emissions, the rollback is considered the most wide-reaching climate policy deregulation of either of Trump’s terms.
“This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told The Wall Street Journal.
The Obama administration’s finding has been named as a reason for regulation raising fuel economy standards and limiting power plant emissions.
“More energy drives human flourishing,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told the Journal. “Energy abundance is the thing that we have to focus on, not regulating certain forms of energy out.”
The new final rule will eliminate requirements to measure, report, certify, and comply with federal greenhouse gas emission standards for motor vehicles, according to the Journal. Power plants and oil and gas facilities will not yet be affected.
Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell is the White House Correspondent for “The Daily Signal.”
Reproduced with permission. Original here: Trump to Roll Back Greenhouse Gas Rule
